The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas announced on Thursday the Sheikh Ahmed Yassin Award on Public Freedoms and Human Rights.

A large number of Palestinian officials and society leaders attended the ceremony of launching the award, which was announced during a conference held in Gaza.

“The award aimed to encourage the culture of public freedoms and human rights among the researchers, mainly the Palestinians,” Dr Nasim Yassin, member of the Board of Trustees of the award, said.

Yassin, a quadriplegic who was almost blind, had used a wheelchair since a sporting accident happened to him while playing with his friends at the age of 12.

After he was forced out of his home by the Zionist gangs in 1948, he was raised up in a refugee camp in Gaza and pursued his high education in Egypt and joined the Muslim Brotherhood.

With a group of his friends, he founded the Islamic Movement in the wake of the Israeli occupation of the Arab lands in 1967. He was an effective teacher and social figure. He was arrested several times by the Israeli occupation.

In 1987, he announced the foundation of the Palestinian Islamic Movement Hamas, which played the main role in the first Palestinian Intifada, known as the Intifada of the Stones.

He was arrested by the Israeli Occupation in 1989 and sentenced to life in addition to 15 years. In 1997, he was released in a bargain between the Israeli occupation and King Hussein of Jordan.

One year later, he carried out a tour around a number of the Arab and Islamic countries and returned to Gaza again before the start of the second Palestinian Intifada in 2000.

He was assassinated when an Israeli helicopter gunship fired several missiles at him as he was being wheeled from the Dawn Prayer. Two of his bodyguards and nine bystanders were killed in the attack.

His assassination was widely condemned and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians attended his funeral.